Has anyone changed their position on the 2A?

gwpercle said:

My father , a WWII veteran , witnessed some things first hand, a group of people were first disarmed for their own safety, then systematically rounded up and eliminated.
He told me that for a nation to be controlled they had to be disarmed...slaves can't own guns and men who are armed will fight for their freedom. He told me to never let the Second Amendment be abolished....there are men who would love to control the USA. Men like Adolph Hitler are still out there , they have an agenda and that agenda is to get Americans disarmed.
Don't fall for their rhetoric....Remember...Slaves can't be allowed to have guns .

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In my experience, nobody ever wanted me ignorant or disarmed for MY benefit.

Like many, I've moved from thinking certain expectations by the State and limits on Citizens were acceptable. I've moved, like many to an absolutist view. The 2A is and says what it is, and our rights are not granted by governments. Additionally, I'm convinced that accommodating any concessions is simply a slower form of surrender.

I'm glad to say that in the late 70's through the 90's, I believed in our mission and purpose regarding the Communists. I'm only more certain that they are an evil to be exterminated.

Jeff B.

Once you've caught onto the lies of the other side, it's like being inoculated from a virulent disease. Exposing those lies to others slows then halts the spread of the disease.

To go back to the op’s original question tho, I’d say yes that a lot of people’s views of it have changed. As noted, many have hardened but some within our own ranks have done the complete opposite. You see back in the day, people with like minds, principles,’opinions etc. stood together. Today many claim to be supporters of the 2A but are quick to give concessions and say things like the USSC can take them away and so on. These are the ones within the ranks that have all but abandoned the idea and will not stand for what they supposedly believe in. We all stand together and keep our rights, or we all fall. It’s that simple. If you believe in the 2A then you must stand for it. If you believe in all the hogwash I have been reading on here and other sites lately that are against the 2A then let’s be honest, you aren’t really for the 2A. It’s ok tho, you don’t have to pretend to be something you aren’t. Hopefully, there are still a large number of people out there that will actually stand for something, but I fear I may be wrong. If that is the case then all is lost, too many people’s minds have gone against the 2A.

SilentStalker said:

To go back to the op’s original question tho, I’d say yes that a lot of people’s views of it have changed. As noted, many have hardened but some within our own ranks have done the complete opposite. You see back in the day, people with like minds, principles,’opinions etc. stood together. Today many claim to be supporters of the 2A but are quick to give concessions and say things like the USSC can take them away and so on. These are the ones within the ranks that have all but abandoned the idea and will not stand for what they supposedly believe in. We all stand together and keep our rights, or we all fall. It’s that simple. If you believe in the 2A then you must stand for it. If you believe in all the hogwash I have been reading on here and other sites lately that are against the 2A then let’s be honest, you aren’t really for the 2A. It’s ok tho, you don’t have to pretend to be something you aren’t. Hopefully, there are still a large number of people out there that will actually stand for something, but I fear I may be wrong. If that is the case then all is lost, too many people’s minds have gone against the 2A.

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You have to understand that some of the defeatism is manufactured and intended to harm the morale of the pro-Constitution side. I've been seeing that for 30+ years.

Yes, but the views I currently hold have been views I've held for well over a decade or longer. I've become more and more opposed to any form of additional gun control over the years. Criminals will get guns in spite of any laws, and law-abiding citizens should never be denied their right to firearms. Violence in this country is a cultural problem, not a "gun problem". When guns were far more easy to obtain, shootings were far less common. In a free society bad people will sometimes do bad things, but the greater good is still protected as a result of the additional liberties we all collectively enjoy.

coloradokevin said:

Yes, but the views I currently hold have been views I've held for well over a decade or longer. I've become more and more opposed to any form of additional gun control over the years. Criminals will get guns in spite of any laws, and law-abiding citizens should never be denied their right to firearms. Violence in this country is a cultural problem, not a "gun problem". When guns were far more easy to obtain, shootings were far less common. In a free society bad people will sometimes do bad things, but the greater good is still protected as a result of the additional liberties we all collectively enjoy.

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I love the lie that "Guns are easier to get now!". When I was in grade school, you could buy handguns through the mail.

My view of the 2A has changed recently. Not in the legal sense since the case law speaks for itself.

The view is based on how power manifests itself in connection with laws. Elections and opinion polls drive politics, politics lead to legislation, courts are inlfluenced by politics, and ultimately internal conflicts or the threat of internal conflict shape policy.

The mood of the country is changing rapidly. The NRA is now viewed as the enemy of the people to the point where an NRA endorsement is almost a political liability. The vast majority of Americans want some kind of universal background check for private sales. They don’t agree with the registration leads to confiscation leads to genocide argument.

So whereas I once thought constitutional guarantees were once etched in stone, I now feel like I am witnessing history being made where rights will be lost due to the people’s interpretation of the issues at stake.

I don’t believe this trend will be corrected given the current turmoil. The division of the people is cyclical in nature and must run its course.

I can only wish the best for all my fellow Americans and pray for our country.

And as the topic is opined, the Left has already prepared anti-2A bills to fester er, promote in the next Congress. I speak of Federal bill HR 7115, which plans on banning many parts, parts kits, even the ability to speak of it. Banning, sounds mmmmoderate doesn't it? Rrrrrreasonable; ssssensible. (not).

This is their lead. What comes afterward? What, not if?

So what does the 2A mean to me? Something to protect, cherish, fight to preserve. For clarification fight references the hard work; the extreme difficult of lifting the phone receiver and dialing Representatives, writing letters, etc.

KNO3 said:

After being a member for a few years, and after reading multiple posts centered on various aspects of RKBA, I'm wondering if anyone has changed their position on any aspect of the 2A? I've read page after page of (basicaly) the same conversation, but I'm wondering if any of you has alterted your thought processes and changed your position. If so, what specific idea/concept have you altered and what was the arguement that did so.

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Not a whit.

I would be mildly interested to discuss a ban on private sales, MSRs, and handgun ownership without a CCW. The other side would have to give me something in return:

1, National carry - take a two week course and you can carry nation wide.
2. National stand your ground - consistent law that you can defend yourself and are not liable for civil or criminal penalties.
3. Constitutional right to own a bolt action rifle, shotgun and suppressors.
4. Constitutional right to own and carry pepper spray, air horns, brass knuckles, knives, and/or tasers. Its kind of dumb people can carry a gun, but not a keyring-eye-poker.

Now, I have no idea how to collect up all the guns that are already out there. Mandatory buybacks might work in Chesterfield, Mo (upscale suburb of St Louis), but not so well in other locations. FBI teams that use tactics like showing up when the owner isn't home, use charming female agents to soft soap people into giving up their firearms, could have some success. But how many can they seize? Maybe a hundred a week? At the end of the year, they'd have a whole five thousand, out of easily ten or fifteen million illegal guns. People would be making their own guns faster than the FBI could seize them.

As the teams have some success, they'd get expanded. Sooner or later, they'd run out of FBI agents and have to use feebs, federal employees who like to kick down doors, smash peoples faces into gravel, and wreck their house. A feeb would cause a shooting incident, and some of the more extreme gun owners would declare ACW 2.

So, yeah, I have no workable idea how to seize the guns that are out there. And, yes, I know there are like 300-400 million firearms owned privately. I'm assuming exceptional success in the voluntary surrender program. The government is letting your keep your shot gun, so why not give up the handgun? Criminals won't have them anymore, right? You can always take the two week course, right?

Certain locations will do their best to limit these guarantees, so lots of cases going to the Supreme Court.

Nor do I know how to write a decent definition of an MSR. Scary tacticool semiautomatic is a little vague.

Not sure how to write this into a constitutional amendment. They are usually pretty concise, and all this stuff would be pages and pages of rules.

Maybe we should take the guns away from the cops, too, like they do in Britain.

Maybe we should just enforce the laws we have.

StationOps said:

I would be mildly interested to discuss a ban on private sales, MSRs, and handgun ownership without a CCW. The other side would have to give me something in return:

1, National carry - take a two week course and you can carry nation wide.
2. National stand your ground - consistent law that you can defend yourself and are not liable for civil or criminal penalties.
3. Constitutional right to own a bolt action rifle, shotgun and suppressors.
4. Constitutional right to own and carry pepper spray, air horns, brass knuckles, knives, and/or tasers. Its kind of dumb people can carry a gun, but not a keyring-eye-poker.

Now, I have no idea how to collect up all the guns that are already out there. Mandatory buybacks might work in Chesterfield, Mo (upscale suburb of St Louis), but not so well in other locations. FBI teams that use tactics like showing up when the owner isn't home, use charming female agents to soft soap people into giving up their firearms, could have some success. But how many can they seize? Maybe a hundred a week? At the end of the year, they'd have a whole five thousand, out of easily ten or fifteen million illegal guns. People would be making their own guns faster than the FBI could seize them.

As the teams have some success, they'd get expanded. Sooner or later, they'd run out of FBI agents and have to use feebs, federal employees who like to kick down doors, smash peoples faces into gravel, and wreck their house. A feeb would cause a shooting incident, and some of the more extreme gun owners would declare ACW 2.

So, yeah, I have no workable idea how to seize the guns that are out there. And, yes, I know there are like 300-400 million firearms owned privately. I'm assuming exceptional success in the voluntary surrender program. The government is letting your keep your shot gun, so why not give up the handgun? Criminals won't have them anymore, right? You can always take the two week course, right?

Certain locations will do their best to limit these guarantees, so lots of cases going to the Supreme Court.

Nor do I know how to write a decent definition of an MSR. Scary tacticool semiautomatic is a little vague.

Not sure how to write this into a constitutional amendment. They are usually pretty concise, and all this stuff would be pages and pages of rules.

Maybe we should take the guns away from the cops, too, like they do in Britain.

Maybe we should just enforce the laws we have.

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You've already given up.

I can see what would happen. There would be ONE place in the US to take that course. The cost would be $10k. You would be responsible for all lodging and meals. The class size would be limited to 100 people per class and there would be 12 classes a year.

Why are you so willing to give up so much?

AlexanderA said:

What has happened in recent years, in America, is a polarization in which all these choices have boiled down into just two camps. You can't pick and choose your issues any more. You must subscribe to everything your "tribe" advocates, even though some of it goes against your strongly-held personal views. To say this is tragic is an understatement. Maybe we would be better served by a multiparty system, rather than the two monstrous conglomerates that we now have. Ultimately, this polarization will lead to civil war, unless something is done to moderate the extremes on both sides.

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This is incredibly cogent and precise.

The modern political reality, and on all matters political, not merely firearms, is that only the two extreme quintiles are politically active. The next two quintiles are the only "swing" votes either side can reach, but, even then, only poorly. The center quintile, per all the political pundits & handicappers, is immobile, unswayable, and thus unpredictable. Which devolves all political campaigning into energizing the "fringe" quintiles to a given end, to enure that they vote a given way, and rather than abstaining or voting in opposition.

So, yes, this probably suggests that the solution is to establish a multi party system. The problem being that the current soup sandwich allows great power to a small number of well-heeled power brokers. They would have to be willing (or forced) to cede some of that considerable power for the greater good.

Deanimator said:

I love the lie that "Guns are easier to get now!". When I was in grade school, you could buy handguns through the mail.

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The Ronald Reagan quote is apt here: "It's not that they don't know anything, it's that they are so certain of it."

The far-left Quintile has something of a fascination with out criminal class, one I do not understand at all. Nor of their constanst apologies for that class, either.
So, inadvertently, they are entirely correct, the criminal class has even less trouble violating the law in acquiring firearms than ever before.
While, we, the legal owners, are forced to leap through ever more constraining strictures for our purchases. All while our legal and lawful ownership is defamed and disgraced and dismissed.

I find, after considerable consideration, that my views have changed, if only slightly. And to be even more strict and absolutist than before. I was raised and inculcated as a strict Constitution constructionist. Which is likely from having grown up around so many who had sworn an oath to uphold and defend that document. With a constant reminder that the oath is to the letter of the law of our land, and to no flawed human leader thereof, nor minions thereof.

I used to believe that there was some merit in allowing the smart to lead the less so, but, I have mellowed to better believe that the Reasonably Knowledgeable do a reasonably good job when not fettered by self-styled "superiors" and anti-libertarians.

I don't care what political alignment a person has tied him/herself to, the fact is this argument is not about guns. The true argument is about Liberty. Ok, so a few liberals like their firearms and think this somehow positions them on the "Acceptable" side of the Patriot Meter when in point of fact, they wish to restrain all manner of the Liberties of a free people.

Back in the dark reaches of time, I once was a California liberal and all that which it connotes. I was deeply indoctrinated by the University of California at Santa Barbara in the 1970s to expect entitlement at the expense of others and to hate the US government over the war in Vietnam. Ever see the movie "Hearts and Minds?" Then, I had a gun pushed against my head and I was thrown into the back of a car. My journey to being an American began that day. Since that day over forty years ago, I have become very hardened against anyone or any entity that works against Liberty. The Second Amendment is the canary in the coal mine. It means liberals are at work to destroy my, and your, American Liberty.

CapnMac said:

The far-left Quintile has something of a fascination with out criminal class, one I do not understand at all. Nor of their constanst apologies for that class, either.
So, inadvertently, they are entirely correct, the criminal class has even less trouble violating the law in acquiring firearms than ever before.
While, we, the legal owners, are forced to leap through ever more constraining strictures for our purchases. All while our legal and lawful ownership is defamed and disgraced and dismissed.

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Actually, if you understand the history of the Soviet Union, Stalin and the GULAG, it makes perfect sense:

1. Stalin started out as a bank robber and extortionist, "fundraising" for the Bolsheviks.
2. Stalin had a soft spot for common criminals.
3. Stalin sent anyone who was even POTENTIALLY a political threat (whom he didn't just have shot) to the GULAG.
4. Common criminals in the GULAG were favored over the "politicals", and allowed to savagely exploit them.

American leftists are just "honoring" a VERY old "tradition".

StationOps said:

I would be mildly interested to discuss a ban on private sales, MSRs, and handgun ownership without a CCW. The other side would have to give me something in return:

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You'd have an Isandlhwana every other day for the confiscators and an Adowa every week.

Pretty soon, you'd run out of confiscators before you ran out of guns.

20 years ago I never paid much attention to my RKBA. With every passing year I become more determined to stop the creep of the encroachment of anti-gun fascists on my RKBA. I donate money now to various pro gun organizations where I never used to. I donate more every year because its a full blown crisis now. We are literally being crushed by the socialist left.

Once you accept that the entire Bill of Rights are "God-given natural laws" and entirely beyond the purview of legislators, courts or administrators then everything else follows - only God has the power to change the Second Amendment.
So far, God hasn't rendered an opinion on gun control
If He does, I'll listen.

StationOps said:

I would be mildly interested to discuss a ban on private sales, MSRs, and handgun ownership without a CCW. The other side would have to give me something in return:

1, National carry - take a two week course and you can carry nation wide.
2. National stand your ground - consistent law that you can defend yourself and are not liable for civil or criminal penalties.
3. Constitutional right to own a bolt action rifle, shotgun and suppressors.
4. Constitutional right to own and carry pepper spray, air horns, brass knuckles, knives, and/or tasers. Its kind of dumb people can carry a gun, but not a keyring-eye-poker.

Now, I have no idea how to collect up all the guns that are already out there. Mandatory buybacks might work in Chesterfield, Mo (upscale suburb of St Louis), but not so well in other locations. FBI teams that use tactics like showing up when the owner isn't home, use charming female agents to soft soap people into giving up their firearms, could have some success. But how many can they seize? Maybe a hundred a week? At the end of the year, they'd have a whole five thousand, out of easily ten or fifteen million illegal guns. People would be making their own guns faster than the FBI could seize them.

As the teams have some success, they'd get expanded. Sooner or later, they'd run out of FBI agents and have to use feebs, federal employees who like to kick down doors, smash peoples faces into gravel, and wreck their house. A feeb would cause a shooting incident, and some of the more extreme gun owners would declare ACW 2.

So, yeah, I have no workable idea how to seize the guns that are out there. And, yes, I know there are like 300-400 million firearms owned privately. I'm assuming exceptional success in the voluntary surrender program. The government is letting your keep your shot gun, so why not give up the handgun? Criminals won't have them anymore, right? You can always take the two week course, right?

Certain locations will do their best to limit these guarantees, so lots of cases going to the Supreme Court.

Nor do I know how to write a decent definition of an MSR. Scary tacticool semiautomatic is a little vague.

Not sure how to write this into a constitutional amendment. They are usually pretty concise, and all this stuff would be pages and pages of rules.

Maybe we should take the guns away from the cops, too, like they do in Britain.

Maybe we should just enforce the laws we have.

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Not just no but hell no. Might I suggest that you bone up on what "shall not be infringed" means?

theotherwaldo said:

So far, God hasn't rendered an opinion on gun control

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He has: He (Jesus) said to them, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one." - Luke 2:36, ESV

Yep.
Jesus said that we should all have swords.
No judge would interpret that to mean that we should all have guns.
That's why this can't be in the hands of judges.